


if you took to me like a gull takes to the wind

by JustOnlyGinger



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 10:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20758781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustOnlyGinger/pseuds/JustOnlyGinger
Summary: All alone in the desert, Theo turns to Boris for comfort.





	if you took to me like a gull takes to the wind

The trouble is that he doesn’t always know if he’s awake or dreaming. Since the acid, it seems like it’s harder to tell, like the boundaries have shifted somehow, dreams invading his waking life and the dullness and desolation of reality pervading his dreams. He’s paranoid a lot of the time, and desperately unhappy in a way that not even the strongest meanest most medicinal-smelling vodka can touch. Out here in the desert it’s like his mother and the Barbours and Hobie and Pippa never even existed, like they’re all just characters he read about once in a book. The only thing that’s real is Boris, so Theo clings to him while trying not to admit that that’s what he’s doing. 

He clings, in bed at night, waking from another nightmare of plunging through abandoned buildings trying to find his mother. Boris feels surprisingly warm and sturdy in the dark. Something about the press of his wiry half-naked body and the film of sweat on his exposed skin… Theo starts to feel something that he knows he shouldn’t feel. The things he doesn’t quite remember are like this, the two of them lying close together in the bleak empty middle of the night, and his head is vague and fuzzy with vodka and his mouth is dry until Boris presses his against it. His lips are pillowy and soft like a girl’s and the coarse tangles of his hair brush Theo’s cheeks. 

Their noses collide bluntly and Theo turns and angles his head and keeps on kissing Boris, and he’s got one hand in Boris’ hair and the other braced against his chest and it’s weird how he can feel everything, the sweat and grit on his skin and the muscle just beneath, gristly and tough like a cheap cut of meat. There’s hardly any fat on Boris’ body to protect his muscles and bones from injury and Theo almost feels like he could plunge his fingers right through his chest and curl them around his beating heart. It beats, triphammer hard and fast, it’s right there under Theo’s palm and Boris arches his chest and groans low in his throat and his tongue flicks gently into Theo’s mouth again.

“Boris…”

“What… what is it, Potter.”

“I don’t know. Don’t stop now. But don’t talk.”

“You want me to, here…” Boris sounds like he’s half awake but his hands are quick and nimble, one plunging down the front of Theo’s underwear while the other cups the back of his neck. Boris’ hand is warm and sure, pulling on him, pulling him out of himself, out of his dreams, and for a split second he feels like he recognizes the truth and the truth is that his dreams and his waking life are equally meaningless. The only thing that has meaning is this, the two of them, lying so close together that they’re breathing each other’s breath. Boris’ hands, his narrow chest, his warm skin and protruding bones and beating heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "New Slang" by the Shins. ...lol


End file.
